Caps for Sale


Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business is a children's picture book, written and illustrated by Esphyr Slobodkina and published by W. R. Scott in 1940.

Summary

Based on a folktale, the story follows the life of a mustachioed cap selling street vendor who wears his entire stock of caps on his head. He carried wares on his head instead of a real street vendor that carries wares on their backs in reality. The set of caps consist of his own checked cap, followed with a bunch of caps from each specific color. The peddler's checked cap is followed with a bunch of green caps, a bunch of yellow caps, a bunch of blue caps, and finally a bunch of red caps on the very top. He strolls through towns and villages saying, "Caps! Caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap!"
The peddler could not sell any caps. Nobody wanted a cap that morning. Nobody even wanted a red one. All the people in the town were probably sleeping. He began to feel very hungry. But he had no money for food.
One day, the peddler sits down under a tree to take a nap, with all his wares still on his head. When he awakens, all the caps but his own are missing. He looked in the front, the back, the left, and the right of him, but there were no caps. But when he looked up in the tree, he saw a troupe of monkeys. He finds the monkeys who are now sitting in the tree and have stolen and are now wearing his caps. On every branch there was a monkey and on every one was a green, a yellow, a blue, or a red cap. The peddler then spoke to them. He orders them to return his caps. So he starts a little game to get the no-good monkeys to give him back his caps. He scolds them, and yells at them, while the monkeys refuse and ignore his warning. Instead, they imitate him doing the same actions as him. At the last point, the peddler shouted, "YOU MONKEYS YOU! YOU MUST GIVE ME BACK MY CAPS!". But one last time, the monkeys refused. They stamped both of their feet back at him and imitated him. Finally, he becomes furious that he throws down his own cap in disgust and walked away. At this, the monkeys throw down theirs as well, right at his feet.
After the monkeys give the peddler back his caps, they leave. The peddler stacks up the caps and puts them back on his head. Then that afternoon, the peddler strolls back to town, where he starts calling once again, "Caps! Caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap!".

Popularity

It is Slobodkina's best-known work, and has sold more than two million copies. Caps for Sale is a popular read-aloud book, because its repetitive text permits children to speak the lines and thus join in the reading experience.
It won a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958.

History

The earliest known account of the story may be found The Wilmington Centinel published in Wilmington, North Carolina January 8, 1789. "According to the following relation from a person just returned from the Labrador coast, the imitative faculty in monkeys seems to exceed every thing short of human. –A sailor having a number of red woolen caps, &c to dispose of among the natives, went on shore for that purpose ; his way to a settlement lying through a woods very copiously inhabited by the species abovementioned, and it being mid day, put a cap on his head, and laying the others by his side, he determined upon a little repose under the shade of a plantain tree. To his utter astonishment, when he awoke, from the specimen he had given his imitative observers of the use of his caps, he beheld a number of them upon the heads of the monkeys on the trees, round about him, while the wearers were chattering in an unusual manner. Finding every attempt to regain them fruitless, he at length in a fit of rage and disappointment, and under the supposition the one he retained was not worth taking away, &c. pulled the same from his head, and throwing it upon the ground exclaimed ---“ here d—n you, take it among ye,” which he had no sooner done, than to his great surprise, the observant monkeys did the same, by which means he regained the greatest part of his property."

Other media

Caps for Sale was included as one of five stories on the 1986 VHS release Five Stories for the Very Young from Weston Woods Studios, animated using illustrations from the book. An unrelated animated version was released on Scholastic's 2007 collection Scholastic Storybook Treasures on DVD.